Worth living
by BrightPurple
Summary: When a little girl is killed, Jane blames himself and old wounds are opened. Will Teresa Lisbon and/or the team be able to cheer him up?


**Disclaimer:** I don't own the mentalist.

**Summary:** When a little girl is killed, Jane blames himself and old wounds are opened. Will Teresa Lisbon and/or the team be able to cheer him up?

**AN:** I guess you can tell quite soon where this is going, but I had to get that story out of my system. Sorry for grammar or spelling mistakes: Not my mother tongue.

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**Worth living**

When the phone rang and Officer Thompson from the local police was on the line, Teresa Lisbon new immediately that something bad must have happened. After hanging up she looked though the glasses of her office over to her team and Patrick Jane pretending to be asleep on "his" couch and her heart was bleeding at the thought of the bad news she had to tell them.

********

Two days ago a 15 year old girl had been found stabbed to death in her bedroom. At the crime scene they had met her mother and the victim's six year old sister. While her and Cho were interrogating the parents, Jane had secretly sneaked off and had not come back when they were ready to leave. Lisbon finally found him in the little girl's room, kneeling on the floor behind a tiny table, a tiny napkin around his neck holding a tiny tea cup between two fingers. The little girl with the long, blond, curly her was busy introducing her dolls to him and he found a charming compliment for every one of them. Lisbon almost couldn't bring herself to interrupt: Patrick Jane was so sweet when it came to handling children. It seemed like in those rare moments where he got to be with children he was becoming one of them and living a childhood he'd never had. But it was time to move on with the investigation, so Lisbon cleared her throat to show her presence and Jane followed her reluctantly to the car.

Later that day they had arrested the victim's father as the prime suspect, but didn't succeed in getting a confession out of him. But they kept him in custody nevertheless.

**********

Now she had just received the news that the mother and the six year old girl had been found dead, stabbed to death as well, this morning by the housekeeper. She could hardly bring herself to tell her team, but they had to leave immediately. She didn't look at Patrick Jane tough while telling them the bad news, because she knew that looking him in the eyes would probably throw her too much off balance to handle a day long of professionally untouched investigation. Being too emotionally close to a case or someone who cared about the victims never helped finding the killer

**********

Teresa Lisbon had seen many dead people, but the sight of the little girl, blond hair stained with blood and the blue eyes still open with an expression of panic, very likely caused by watching her mom being killed and the killer coming at her, shattered her more than she'd ever admit to anyone. And what was worse: She happened to catch a sight of Patrick Janes face while inspecting the crime scene. He looked broken, no hint of his usual mask of the charming yet irritating playfulness. She remembered the day he had told her of his breakdown after his wife and daughter had been murdered, and how back then the falling of his mask and the immeasurable sadness in his eyes had almost broken her heart. But that had been nothing compared to the desperate, devastated expression she could see in his face now. He just kneeled down beside the victim, closing her eyes and stroking softly over her curly hair. Lisbon had to give orders about how to go on with the investigation. She had to be tough, although she just wanted to give her consultant a hug and tell him it was not his fault. As she obviously couldn't do that in the middle of an investigation, she just lay a comforting hand on his shoulder while ordering Cho and Rigsby to go along with Jane to question the father again if he had any clue of who could have done that to his ex wife and daughters while she and Van Pelt would go to the kid's school to find out if anyone had a clue what could have led to the mother's and child's death. Still kneeling on the floor and without looking up to her, Jane reached up to his shoulder, softly squeezing her hand. She understood this silent "thank you" for not making him go visit the school where he would have been confronted with more of his demons than he could possibly have handled on one single day.

************

After this long and hard day of interrogations was over and Teresa Lisbon was at home, taking a shower, she couldn't get her consultant's haunted and devastated expression out of her mind. She knew him well enough to know exactly how much this case had shattered him. She knew he was blaming himself - again - for the death of that little girl because he hadn't immediately found out the right suspect. And she knew that this case had broken up the old, not yet fully healed wound of his daughter's death and the guilt he felt for causing her death. He never spoke to her about his wife and daughter, as he never spoke a word about the pain he felt. He must have been the loneliest person she'd ever met, yet he never complained but was wearing a brave face almost all the time. After hours of sleepless worry, she gave in to the urge of going to him, letting him know that he was not alone, that she was a friend who loved him, cared about him and was there for him whenever he needed someone to talk to or just hold him. She knew he would push her away, he didn't want to drag her down into his world of dark revenge and sorrow. Yet this time she wouldn't let him push her away, he had to come to understand that there was more to this world than just sorrow and pain and loneliness.

So she got dressed, into her car and to the CBI headquarters. He was likely to spend the night on his sofa, as lately he hardly ever went home any more. When she entered the office area, she could see that she had been right: He was sitting on his sofa, wide awake but absent mindedly staring into nowhere. He was so distracted in his dark thoughts that he didn't even notice her approaching. She could see the pain in his eyes and it broke her heart seeing him that way. Silently she approached him and before he knew what was going on she had pulled him into a hug. She could feel his muscles get tense for a moment in an attempt to push her away, but to her surprise, he quite soon relaxed in her arms, hugging her back and burying his head in her neck. When she felt the t-shirt on her neck becoming wet and the soft tremble of his body while he was crying silently in her arms, she could feel tears running down her own cheeks as well. She knew there were no words that could comfort him now. She could have told him it was not his fault, he already knew but couldn't help blaming himself. The only thing she could do for him now was letting him know he was not alone, reassuring him that she cared, would be there for him whenever he needed her. She held him in her arms, stroking softly over his back and his curly hair, crying silently along with him.

**********

She didn't know how long they had stayed in a hug. Could have been minutes, could have been hours. Eventually he had stopped crying, but she could feel that he was reluctant to give up the closeness they just shared. Eventually he lifted his head and looked into her eyes. The sadness was still there in his eyes, but she could see a hint of that magic sparkle coming back, a hint of hope and an overwhelming thankfulness. It was already morning and the other members of the team would soon be coming, so it was time for both of them to get professional again. While she was standing up, Patrick Jane grabbed her hand and softly pulled her back on the couch.

"Teresa . . ."

She could see that he was fighting back the tears again, but this time they weren't tears of pain but tears of affection and thankfulness. She understood what he wanted to say without him having to spell it out, so she just placed a soft kiss on his cheek.

"You're welcome, Patrick!"

And with that she left to make herself ready for another work day.

***********

Just about fifteen minutes later, Rigsby, Cho and Van Pelt arrived at work and Lisbon was secretly watching them through the window of her office. Obviously they had been worried about their co-worker as well and the sight of them trying to cheer Patrick Jane up conjured a happy smile on Lisbon's face. Cho was the first to approach him, the others still a bit intimidated as they could see that Jane had been crying and didn't quite know how to handle that. Cho sat down on the sofa beside Jane and handed him over a book: "Whenever I'm sad and start losing faith into people and the world, I read a few pages of that book. It has never yet failed to make me smile . . . at least on the inside," he added when he could see a tenderly mocking smile on Jane's face and heard Rigsby chuckle in the background.

"Thank you, Cho, my friend, let's hope it'll work for me as well: Never underestimate a genuine smile" Jane said thankfully before Cho got up from the sofa, giving Jane a reassuring pad on the shoulder. Then Rigsby went over to the sofa and handed Jane a bag full of bagels: "I brought you some of those bagels from your favourite store. I know you haven't eaten for at least a day and we don't want you to starve, you know. "Oh thank you, Rigsby, I'm starving indeed! I guess you just saved my life! But please help yourself, too: The journey to the other end of the town to my favourite store must have been exhausting at rushour!" Jane said, mouth already full of bagel.

Last, but not least, Van Pelt sat down beside Jane on the sofa and handed him a little soft toy tiger. Obviously not only Lisbon had noticed Jane's childish side. "This little fellow is supposed to keep you company whenever you feel lonely and no one else is around. He's very loyal and is never going to betray your trust. That's what friends are for, you know . . ." she said, her voice slightly trembling. Jane was very moved and a little surprised by this heartfelt speech of the usually so composed Agent Van Pelt. He took the little tiger gently in his hand and started stroking it softly. "What a lovable little fellow. I'm really lucky with a friend like that!" he said with a tender smile to Van Pelt and pressing an even more tender kiss on the little tiger's nose. Lisbon could have sworn Van Pelt was blushing when she got up from the sofa to go back to her desk.

Lisbon was still smiling. To see how much her team cared about Patrick Jane made her happy. She was sure that once he understood how genuinely everybody close to him loved and cared about him, he would sooner or later come to understand that life was worth living beyond pain, guilt and revenge. And she was sure that in the end, he would chose life and their friendship over revenge.


End file.
